Teen Held In Killing Of Grandma Was On Probation

The Lake Mary Youth Admitted To Police Last Year That He Performed Lewd And Lascivious Acts On A Child.

October 20, 1998|By Elaine Backhaus of The Sentinel Staff

LAKE MARY - A teenager charged in the stabbing death of his grandmother was on probation at the time for committing a lewd and lascivious act on a child, Lake Mary police said.

Seminole County court records also show that Mark Louis Dufault, 14, admitted to police last year that he performed the acts on the young girl on two occasions near his grandmother's home at 229 Byron Ave.

Meanwhile, the Seminole-Brevard State Attorney's Office said Monday it plans to charge the teenager as an adult in the death of his grandmother, Joyce Marie Adams, 60, who was stabbed six times Friday with a paring knife in the bedroom of her home. Dufault, a ninth-grader at Seminole High School in Sanford, is being held on a murder charge at the Seminole County Juvenile Detention Center.

An autopsy Monday showed Adams bled to death from a stab wound to her aorta. The food service manager at Longwood Elementary School had also been stabbed once in the right lung - which collapsed - once in her left knee, neck and in each arm, police Capt. Sam Belfiore said.

Lake Mary police investigators said the boy said he attacked his grandmother from the back, placing his hand over her mouth, and that the two had struggled on the bed.

The boy's father, Mark Neil Dufault, 36, who was living with his mother and was awakened by her screams, pulled his son off Adams, but it was too late, police said.

The boy told investigators that he had a lot of ``pent-up anger,'' and the only way to release it was to kill someone, investigators said.

Lake Mary police had previous contact with the teenager, as well as his parents.

About the same time Lake Mary police arrested the boy in the March 1997 lewd and lascivious case, they also arrested his divorced parents and charged them with witness tampering in the incident.

Court records show Mark Neil Dufault and Janet Dufault, also 36, were arrested after the victim's mother said they had threatened to harm her if she notified police about what had happened.

The victim's mother also told police that the couple said they didn't want their son to go to jail, and that at one point the boy's father told her he was going to get a knife from the kitchen, court records state.

The boy's parents later pleaded no contest to reduced charges, and each paid a $100 fine.

When police questioned Adams about what she knew about the witness-tampering incident, court records state, she lowered her head after telling investigators that she didn't want to get involved. Minutes later, though, she told police that she was in her bedroom when her son and former daughter-in-law were talking with the victim's mother. Court records state Adams told police that she didn't hear everything that was said, but that she didn't think her son actually would have harmed the woman.

Adams, who had worked for the Seminole County school district for more than 20 years, had been the food service manager at Longwood Elementary for three years.

Monday, counselors went to the school to help Adams' co-workers and students deal with their grief.

Dan Andrews, the district's food service director, called Adams a ``dear, sweet lady'' who doted on her grandson and loved working with students.

``She was very positive, very friendly, very giving,'' Andrews said. ``She just loved the kids.''